


Half A Year

by Gazyrlezon



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Gen, but it was 1am and I just had to write it down, so yeah here we go, this one's rather a mess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-13
Updated: 2017-07-13
Packaged: 2018-12-01 20:54:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11494551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gazyrlezon/pseuds/Gazyrlezon
Summary: The three of them sat in silence. By unspoken agreement, none of them talked very much. The pool glittered in themoonlight, and occasionally Jonathan could hear the water swapping against its boundaries,but aside from that they lay in silence.





	Half A Year

The three of them sat in silence. By unspoken agreement, none of them talked very much. The pool glittered in the moonlight, and occasionally Jonathan could hear the water swapping against its boundaries, but aside from that they lay in silence. 

Lost in himself he stared across the water to the bushes and undergrowth of the forest growing there. 

By that same agreement, none of them had mentioned that it was exactly half a year since he’d cowering on the other side of these bushes, since he’d spied on the party going on in Steve’s backyard. Jonathan’d tried very hard not to think about it, or at least not too much … not that it worked, of course. If anything, he thought about it more than ever. 

Wondered what he’d thought he was doing. 

Wondered what he’d thought he _should_ be doing. 

_At least we got proof of the monster out of it all,_ he’d tell himself, _so I guess it wasn’t a_ _complete waste, then._

Not that he’d tell that to anyone, least of all the two people that were now sitting next to him. When they’d dragged him over (because that was what they’d done, really, they’d dragged him, because otherwise Jonathan would’ve never shown up no matter how much he wanted to, because he’d just be sitting in his room thinking _should I stay or should I go_ until finally it was too late anyways so he wouldn’t come at all) they’d called this a _party_ — it was, in fact, the first real “party” he’d ever been invited to in a non-mocking way — but really it wasn’t that. There was beer, sure, and Steve’d thrown in some of that awful music he liked so much at first before quickly turning it off again. 

And of course the beer was in bottles, not cans. Never cans. If there was one thing that Jonathan could pride himself on, then it was being observant, and he hadn’t seen a single can of beer — or of anything else, really — in either Nancy’s or Steve’s hands since … well, since _then_. Not that there’d been one in his, either (in fact, he'd been busy inventing ever more creative ways of cooking breakfast while keeping his hands away from anything that even remotely resembled a knife, or otherwise had an edge that looked sharp enough to draw blood). None of them talked about it, and yet little things like that one always seemed to drown out any conversation they had (that was, when they weren’t already drowned enough in being awkward or embarrassing, as they were most times). 

No, this wasn’t a party. At parties, people had _fun_ , or at least they pretended to, and most of all, they _talked_ (possibly excepting him, of course, or at least that had been the case on the few school-organized “events” he’d ever gone to, where he’d mostly just spent his time sitting in a corner. He generally didn’t talk to anyone first, and of course nobody would talk to him, either, and so he’d gone through most of them without speaking a single word). 

Jonathan was, he suspected, on the best way towards going through this one entirely silent as well. Still, it was different. He wasn’t in a corner, or, well, he was, but it was a corner made of Steve and Nancy who’d sort of laid themselves half on top oh him. He had one arm around Nancy — she was sobbing softly, and though he wasn’t great with people, he hoped this would be enough for her to know that he was _here_ for her — and the other was buried somewhere under Steve’s weight and would probably hurt like hell, later. Jonathan didn’t mind, though. 

He thought about saying something, just to prove to himself that he wasn’t the socially isolated creep anymore, but then he’d see the forest again, and _remember_ , remember what he’d done that night and what he hadn’t … 

And so in the end it was Nancy who broke the silence between them, her voice shaking from grief for her lost friend. 

“It was my fault,” she admitted. At that, Steve physically climbed over him, laid his arms around her and insisted she was wrong. 

“No,” he said, “it’s not your fault. There was no way of knowing what was gonna happen.” 

“But I left her, out _here_.” 

“You couldn’t know,” Steve insisted — and rightly so, Jonathan thought, and squeezed Nancy’s shoulder a bit, hoping she’d take that as the comfort it was intended to — “None of us could know. We left her out here, yes, but no one, _no one_ , could ever have forseen this … this whatever-it-was to come out of fucking nowhere to start killing people. If it’s anyone’s fault, then of these stupid assholes at Hawkings Lab, who knew and did nothing.” 

There was a moment of silence, then, before Jonathan spoke up. 

“It wasn’t your fault, Nancy.” He took a deep breath. “It was mine.” 

Steve got halfway through an incredulous _what_ , but Jonathan continued before he could’ve stopped him. 

“I was out there when you were gone. I _saw_ Barb, saw her sitting there alone and with her finger bleeding … I even took the photograph, with the Demagorgon in it.” His voice was a whisper by now. “I could’ve done something. _Should_ have.” He didn’t think that he had to mention what he’d been doing instead. 

_Taking these pictures, and staring_ _… staring at Nancy undressing herself. No wonder they_ _called my creep._

Neither of them answered, not at first. Jonathan didn’t know what he feared more, then, that they’d agree or disagree. So he waited, anxious, fearing. 

Amazingly, Nancy got through to a reaction first (Steve was too busy staring at him in disbelieve). 

“This is such _bullshit_ ,” she told him in that certain tone of complete incredulity that only she could do, and though he hadn’t known before that he would be Jonathan felt immensely relieved by that. Meanwhile, Steve, always the cuddling guy, shifted around so he now lay on both of them at once, hugging them in equal measure. For half a second Jonathan tensed before relaxing again; sometimes he still didn’t remember that not every touch from someone else his age meant mocking. 

“Johnny, you know,” Steve started, “sometimes I think you’re brilliant, but then it always turns out” _— that you’re a creep —_ “that you’re actually way too busy being stuck in some infinite loop of self-blaming. Not everything is your fault, you know.” 

And though Jonathan couldn’t get around thinking _a lot still is, though_ , there was no denying the truth of what Steve had just said, either. 

_None of us could know,_ Steve had said. Sometimes Jonathan forgot that he was a part of that _us_ , now, even when having his arm around Nancy and with Steve lying half on top of him. 

It was good they always reminded him, though.

**Author's Note:**

> So yeah, as mentioned in the tags, this isn't really a story. I just had this idea that at least Nancy and Jonathan would blame themselves (and possibly Steve, too) for Barb's death, and ahm … yeah. I wrote this down. It's the first thing I've ever written with these three (the first thing I've written for Stranger Things at all, actually), and I don't think I've got their voices there yet.
> 
> Hope that some of you enjoy the read it anyways.
> 
> Gazyrlezon.


End file.
